Early Intervention in Addiction

If you or someone you know abuses drugs or alcohol, you likely heard the phrase early intervention at some point. In fact, intervening early in addiction is important. No longer do professionals in the field of addiction treatment believe you must wait for help until you hit rock bottom. Specifically, research proves that early help for addiction gives you the best chance for long-term sobriety.

Why Early Intervention Matters

Your addiction only gets worse with each passing day. Therefore, time is your enemy, when it comes to the effects of drugs and alcohol on your brain chemistry and learning capabilities. The longer you abuse drugs or alcohol, the harder your road back to sobriety will be. However, when it comes to your recovery, you should adopt a motto of “no time like the present.”

Recovery involves taking on permanent lifestyle changes. If you gain early intervention treatment, you don’t face the intense struggle of someone suffering the disease for years. Intervening early means getting help before addiction takes hold.

If you don’t suffer addiction already, you may see it coming. Furthermore, you know what it feels like, to want or need your substance. For example, you suffer many signs of needing an intervention right away, including:

Mood swings and changing behaviors

Lying about your substance use

Work and financial problems

Shifting priorities and missing favorite activities

Choosing drugs over family or friends

Isolating yourself and using to feel better or pass the time

Pitfalls of Addiction

Addiction marks changes in your brain chemistry and even its structure. However, before addiction takes hold, you seek your drug or alcohol more and more often. You don’t want addiction, but put yourself on that path every day. In addition, the path to addiction includes triggers and behaving in specific ways.

In fact, this cycle of addiction is actually a survival instinct. Throughout daily life, we feel triggers, such as hunger. Then we behave certain ways to fulfill that need, such as by eating. Getting what you need provides a feeling of reward, setting you up to more efficiently meet the need in the future.

For many people, substance abuse starts because of a mental illness, such as social anxiety. Therefore, they drink to feel more social. Their reward is the “high” of feeling liked, attractive, and able to socialize. However, the longer you allow the cycle to control you, the closer you get to addiction.

Getting the Early Intervention You Need

If you abuse drugs or alcohol or love someone who does, you need help now. Specifically, the right time is as early in substance abuse as possible.

Waiting to get help only creates more chaos in your daily life. Everyone around you suffers. As a result, you risk damaging your finances, career, and even your freedom.

Before your problems grow, you need rehab treatment or intensive outpatient rehab through one of the highest quality substance abuse programs. With Joint Commission accreditation, Crest View Recovery Center provides this help to get your life back on track before it completely falls apart in addiction.